Sunday, December 27th
GACKT – Longing
Today I finished The Phase: Shattering the Illusion of Reality by Michael Raduga. Actually, I probably powered through it too fast. I intend to go back and re-read and take notes.
Anyone who is reading this, and wants to master astral projection, OBE, or lucid dreaming: if you own any other books about this topic, literally go and throw them all in the trash immediately, and then pick up a copy of this book.
I bought it a few weeks ago and had it sitting idle in my kindle library for all this time before I decided to read it. It’s a comprehensive, straightforward approach to mastering the “phase state”, which the author defines as any state which constitutes full conscious awareness divorced from the physical self — this covers OBEs, lucid dreaming, and astral projection; all of which the author considers to be under the umbrella of the phase state.
While reading it I couldn’t help but see links between his techniques & explanations and my own experiences. And, apparently I am highly predisposed to the phase state, going by the author’s given subjective and objective measures. Nice. Looking through the lens of his paradigm at my own past experiences, I have apparently left my body previously, uncounted times, but until that episode at the end of November, it never fully resolved into a “deep phase” experience; not counting some of the spontaneous lucid dreaming episodes I’ve had over the past few years.
And looking at that first “proper” experience; I had spontaneously followed several key pieces of his advice: the technique of viewing images behind your closed eyelids and being drawn into the image; aggressively and single-mindedly straining to leave your body; “deepening” the experience immediately on separation by scrutinising and examining your immediate surroundings with all your senses.
His mention that — out of thousands of reports from people who’d achieved OBE — most people were unable to explain the feeling of separation without the words “simply” and “easily” was interesting to me as well, and I think it underscores the idea of will vs. intent, which are distinct concepts, although closely related, and very difficult to define clearly in opposition to each other.
Although the author considers himself a materialist, and scorns the notion of the occult having any crossover with the “phase” state, I am intrigued by the possible applications here and insatiably curious to learn more.
What I find most compelling is his statement that the “phase state” is nothing more than the material world, unbound from the usual constraints of our waking senses, and therefore a superposition of all possibilities. He also later states the possibility (rather, the likelihood) of the phase state being governed entirely by the subconscious mind.
Here and there he mentions programming, whether self-programming or programming objects in the phase state… “a practitioner should repeat a desired goal silently or aloud, and, if possible, should imagine experiencing the desired result” — a quote from the author, but this being essentially the two major techniques, SATS (state akin to sleep) and affirmations, of Law of Assumption / Law of Belief practifce. He also devotes a whole section to causing physiological change (mostly focused on self-healing) via the phase state. This, to me, has heavy crossover with Neville Goddard and Joseph Murphy’s LOA/LOB techniques; as do other things he has mentioned, such as the “free-floating” state for entering the phase, being akin to Goddard’s SATS.
Unlike the waking world, which appears before us in our awakened state no matter what; the phase state seems to require constant close scrutiny to uphold itself. The author also goes into detail about how non-observance of the reality of the environment is critical to change… such as closing your eyes in order to translocate, or walk through a wall, or dive through the floor, but I believe this has broader implications as well in the waking world, and closely aligns with LOA/LOB practice.
All in all, I recommend this book highly; despite the author taking a somewhat agnostic and materialistic stance on the practice, I am very interested in what application it has from an occult perspective. After all, to quote Arthur C. Clarke’s third law, “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
…And to quote Clarke’s second law: “The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.”
This, I think, will be my motto for 2021.
All this came at just the right time since I have time off from work over the holidays, which I intend to put to good use. (Actually my plans were vaguely centred around microdosing psychedelics, but I am happy to change course… or do both simultaneously.)
Part of that will be developing a plan for 2021, my extremely limited time horizon be damned, and then bury it somewhere at the back of a cupboard so I can reference it this time next year and point out where I succeeded.
So, given my proclivity for sleep paralysis; beyond inteding to do such mundane things in the “phase state” as rollerskating down a hill really fast, flying to Mars, turning into a dinosaur, etc., I think my attention should also be turned to things like: performing a ritual in the phase state; programming myself with autosuggestion, whether superliminal, placebo, intentional; and exploring the boundaries of consciousness and influence.
I find it comforting that even the media I watch these days seems to point me in the direction of loftier pursuits and higher questions. Although that’s hardly to be questioned since I’m consuming media pickily; but in this case, watching a show based on one of my childhood favourite book series… which I have actually only recently re-read… and finding in it a great deal of food for thought, not only the nature of the characters’ journeys and findings, but also them speaking aloud quotes which I hold dear to my heart: “To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders.”
And the symbology and depth behind the surface can likewise not be ignored. After becoming fascinated with an artist’s depiction of a magician, those depicted hand gestures being… not mimicked by, but synchronised with, characters in said show… which leads to me not only developing my own spin on it, and incorporating it into practice, but then finding greater meaning to it by delving into palmistry and the like. Suffice it to say I’ve never been one for gestures, nor really drawn to ceremonial magic. But the links drawn by the mage themself are ultimately the most meaningful, so I’ll go with it and see where it takes me.
I’ve been tracking my menstrual cycle for about 18 months, after coming off hormonal birth control about two years ago.
fuck.
I slipped very easily into an altered state, and I had a more intense physical reaction than I’ve ever had. Normally when I work with demonic currents all the muscles in my extremities tense up; this time I didn’t notice that so much, because I was focused on how the room temperature dropped significantly in a matter of seconds, and then goosebumps erupted over my entire body, wave after wave. I think my mistake then was moving too quickly to the next part of the ritual, and the intensity lessened. But I could hear faint whispering, and sense the entity very closely, hovering on the edge of visibility, like condensed shadow.
It was exactly like how some Hollywood film might represent the soul’s unknown journey into birth. Cheers for that, brain.
That begs the question, is there protocol here?
And, I’d like to thank 
I think it might be just me. I get the sense of her kind of standing at the gateway of a great, crushing, black vortex, a starless galaxy. Maybe that’s where she sends the bad spirits. 
all good, we’re working on it.
Neat that it was the third card pulled, and that you had a dream tarot reading. Ty for sharing and looking forward to reading more!